|
RRI newsletter subcription
(e-mail address):
|
 |
Archives:
|
|
| The Week In Review |
| (2012-02-18) |
| Last updated: 2012-02-21 14:39 EET |
In the lineup today:
Heavy snow and wind left areas of Romania paralyzed
Government coalition parties in Bucharest have endorsed the European Financial Stability Treaty
European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos held talks with Romanian officials
Verdicts have been issued in corruption trials in Romania
Steaua Bucharest lost against Dutch team Twente
Heavy snow and wind left areas of Romania paralyzed
In the first half of the week, Romania’s south was under code orange alert for heavy snows and winds. The snow banks have covered houses, isolating dozens of villages, and killing a large number of people. The death toll rose daily, and is now close to a hundred. Food and medicine were difficult to carry to the affected areas, in some cases by helicopter so that basic goods reach the people under isolation. Power was lost over wide areas, thousands of schools were closed, and many national and county roads were rendered unusable. The worst affected were the counties of Vrancea and Buzau for which the authorities have declared a state of emergency. Wednesday and Thursday, the bad weather moved to the northwest, and a code orange alert was declared in 11 counties in that area. Experts announced that even though it has been snowing heavily, floods are unlikely to happen by March 1st, considering that over the next two weeks the temperature will be rising up to 10 degrees Celsius, and no rains are forecast.
Government coalition parties in Bucharest have endorsed the European Financial Stability Treaty
On Monday, President Traian Basescu invited parliamentary parties to consultations regarding the Treaty for Financial and Fiscal Stability in Europe, which is supposed to get signed in early March. The talks were attended only by the government coalition, made up of the Social Democratic Party, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the National Union for the Progress of Romania, as well as representatives of national minorities other than Hungarian. On Wednesday they signed a political protocol in support of the endorsement of this document by the Romanian head of state at the European Council in Brussels. The opposition, made up of the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party and Conservative Party, has been on parliamentary strike since February 1st, and said they would not attend the consultations given the very serious situation created by the terrible weather. However, they said they would support the initiative, with a few amendments. According to Social Democrat Bogdan Niculescu Duvaz, a member of the lower chamber of parliament, the opposition will say yes to the treaty if the EU guarantees they would not cut infrastructure funds for Romania.
European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos held talks with Romanian officials
European commissioner for agriculture Dacian Ciolos, the first and only European Commissioner from Romania, urged agriculture officials in Bucharest to pay close attention to the absorption of European funds for rural development. He said they should make impact studies for the investments through the rural development program in the real economy, talking to Prime Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu and Agriculture Minister Stelian Fuia. Ciolos said that he was happy Romania doesn’t risk losing European funds for farming, but that it should keep up the pace of absorption and payments for running projects. The commissioner also said that Bucharest has to be more active in debates around the Common Agricultural Policy. In the opinion of the Romanian prime minister, agriculture has a bright future, which is worthy of adequate financial support, mainly for rural modernization and investment in rural infrastructure, as well as for guaranteeing food security. Romania’s rate of absorption in terms of direct payments in agriculture is almost 100%, while that in rural development is 34%.
Verdicts have been issued in corruption trials in Romania
Recently, former prime minister Adrian Nastase was sentenced to two years in prison for illegal campaign fundraising in 2004, and this week, two former ministers of agriculture got convicted for corruption, and got sentences for three years each. Decebal Traian Remes was found guilty of improper use of office privileges for his stint at the ministry in 2007, while Ioan Avram Muresan, his colleague during the Democratic Convention government between 1996 and 2000, was convicted for acting as an accessory to influence peddling. According to prosecutors, Remes received from a businessman, through Muresan, food products and 15,000 Euro in order to abusively award contracts in two public bids for land management works. He also received a few years ago a suspended sentence of 7 years in prison. He got the conviction because, during his time as minister, he abusively dispatched fuel from state reserves to a company that did not comply with legal requirements.
Steaua Bucharest lost against Dutch team Twente
On Romania’s National Arena, the newest stadium in the capital city, Steaua Bucharest was defeated on Thursday night by one goal by the Dutch team Twente, in the first leg of the 16th Europa League. The second leg will be played in a week in Holland. If they defeat Twente, Steaua, the only Romanian team left in the European competition, will play against one of two teams, Viktoria Plzen of the Czech Republic and Schalke 04 of Germany, which will be facing off in the second leg of their competition, whose first leg ended in a 1-all tie. The finals of the Europa League will be played in Bucharest in May, also on the National Arena.
|
|
| |
WMA |
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
128kbps : |
1
2
3
|
| |
MP3 |
|
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
128kbps : |
1
2
3
|
| |
AAC+ |
|
|
48kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
 Historical mascot of
RRI |
2025-04-03
Print
Listen again